The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) has adopted a set of 10 principles to guide the transition to sustainable food systems. The 10 principles include 5 principles to shape the sustainable food systems of the future, and 5 principles for the types of knowledge and analysis that are required to support this transition.

Despite the mobilization of the political and scientific communities around various food systems issues, the task remains incomplete. There has been a tendency to address the problems as individual pieces of the puzzle, and to overlook the power relations that play a major role in shaping these systems. And crucially, the knowledge of those affected by food systems problems has not been fully harnessed in framing the problems and diagnosing the solutions.

The challenge, therefore, is to produce a joined-up picture of food systems and their political economy, and to do so in ways that reach across the scientific disciplines, and reach beyond the traditional bounds of the scientific community.

About the author of the Report: IPES-Food is a new independent panel for food systems reform, co-chaired by Olivier De Schutter, former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, and ex-UNICEF nutrition expert Olivia Yambi. It features 18 top experts from various fields connected to food systems.This is its first report